Late Phases

I've always been drawn to Werewolf stories.  My favorite of all time is The Howling, but I also have a special place for An American Werewolf In London and Wolfen in my heart.  The big problem, of course, with Werewolf movies is that the rich subtext of internal evils externalized is often shrugged off in favor of the carnivorous beast that stalks the night.  Over the years I've watched my favorite of the movie monsters turned into a boring stereotype of rage and fury, lusting after blood on the moonlit thrill of the hunt.  That or they're played by teenagers who are in love with triangle mouthed girls who can't decide between them or the vampire in their life.  Boring.  So, imagine how happy I am to be writing about Late Phases, a new Werewolf movie from the director of Here Comes The Devil.

Set in a rural old retirement community on the edge of a nondescript mountain town, Late Phases starts off with a bang, so to speak, when curmudgeonly blind Veteran, Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici) is attacked by a Werewolf.  The story then follows Ambrose as he silently picks through his community in an effort to find out who the Werewolf is and dispatch it.  Sounds pretty straightforward, but where the film does a much better job with the genre than any of it's recent predecessors is by giving it the feel and attention of a true character piece.  By holding Ambrose up in the forefront we are allowed to examine the behaviors of those around him and at times we feel that he may be the luckiest one of all unable to physically see the ugly sides of humanity any longer.

The film still falls in the low budget horror realm, but it makes due with it's budgetary constraints by amplifying the story visually while also employing some excellent costuming and makeup befitting of the bi-pedal hulks of fur and fury.  The whole look of the film has a golden hue to it, visually representing a community of people who's golden years have now passed.  Ambrose, a gruff do-it-yourselfer, doesn't really belong here, but driven by a sense of duty, he stays to put an end to the story.  If I hadn't known any better, I would have guessed that Damici was actually blind, as he does a remarkable job of portraying the physicality of it.

I missed the film's one off theatrical run in Los Angeles, but luckily it can be rented, or even bought, on Amazon Instant.  It's not without it's cheesy moments, but Damici's standout performance is amplified by a good pace and visual element, that when you add in the gore and Wolves you've got yourself one hell of a good Werewolf movie.  Sprinkle in some great supporting performances from Lance Guest and Tom Noonan, what more do you really need?  Definitely on par with some of the greats, if not tugging lovingly at their tails.

Here Comes The Devil: 16 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Mexican cinema has it's fair share of dark subject matter.  Though most of the films that make their way to the States are comedies or drama's, occasionally a nice little shocker slips through the cracks and finds it's way to American distribution channels.  One such film is 2012's Here Comes The Devil, a recent take on the demonic possession genre, with a couple of added twists.

The film opens with a hot and heavy lesbian sex scene that displaces the mood, immediately taking the audience of guard.  Then, as should probably be expected of a shock film, there is a violent home invasion moment where a man starts to beat one of the girls to death, taking a few of her fingers with his machete.  Her lover, manages to dispatch the killer with a blow to the head and he runs away up a nearby hill before the story inexplicable shifts location almost entirely.

We then center on a small family on a day out together.  The two kids decide to climb a hill, that looks awfully similar to the hill from the opening sequence of the film, and while the parents get down and dirty in their car (ya know, to pass time) it becomes apparent that the kids are not returning any time soon.  Now we have the fear setting in on the parents as they have to spend a tense night in a hotel before a search can be conducted in the morning.  To their surprise, they are greeted at the hotel by a police officer with the kids.  Everything seems normal at first, but as the story unravels there is something definitely wrong with the children, and the conclusion is both shocking and off putting to say the least.

The film runs the gamete of tricks to mess with the audience, sound and light gags, strange bruise make up, etc, but what was very interesting and refreshing about the film was the structure of the story.  Typically, it seems that parents in films like this ignore the signs that something may be very wrong until it jumps up and bites them in the ass.  In this film, the parents actively try to discover what may have happened to their kids, first assuming that they may have been sexually assaulted by a local idiot, before the supernatural explanation becomes more and more plausible.  It's gives the film the feel of a mystery, with plenty of dashes of sexually charged shock imagery involving various taboos from demonic rape, incest, and other such violence.

My main qualm with the film is that it's look and feel was a bit cheap on the whole, belying a small budget, but what they did with the story made up pretty well.  The two child actors are creepy as all hell and the parents dynamic worked well.  The telenovella acting style of the gentleman playing the detective was a bit off putting to me, but again the story was intriguing enough for me to forgive it.  Overall, the movie was just the right kind of entertainingly screwed up for me to recommend it for a watch!  Not great, but not bad either.

3 out of 5 skulls.